Ahoy...I've missed you
Sorry for the long delay but I've been really busy. I'm going to start
updating more now that I am home. I found this article in the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinal. Here is the link
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/331498.asp
~Yoni
ON WISCONSIN : JS ONLINE : NEWS : MILWAUKEE :
E-MAIL | PRINT THIS STORY Far from home, friendship spans political divide
Palestinian, Israeli girls find much in common in U.S.
By JAMAAL ABDUL-ALIM
jabdul-alim@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 5, 2005
Shorewood - Back home, even though they live only a short distance from one another, 11-year-old Maya Lowengart and 10-year-old Lina Alaraj would have been worlds apart.
World-Wise Friendship
Photo/Elizabeth Flores
Maya Lowengart (left), who is Israeli, and Lina Alaraj, who is Palestinian, have been friends since learning English together last year at Shorewood’s Atwater Elementary School.
Two Cultures:
One Friendship
Graphic/Bob Veierstahler
Click to enlarge
Maya is an Israeli from the village of Timmorim. Her native tongue is Hebrew.
Lina is a Palestinian from Beit Jala on the West Bank. Her first language is Arabic.
Back in their homelands - where ideological and political clashes over land and power persist between Israelis and Palestinians - the girls may have never crossed paths, much less become schoolmates.
But here at Atwater Elementary School, the girls are classmates, and, after learning English together during special sessions each day beginning last fall, they have become good friends.
The other day, a visitor found the girls seated together at the same table during lunch - a regular occurrence, according to the school principal.
And during recess, the girls say, they play follow-the-leader and tag, and sometimes make peace between embittered friends when playground disputes arise.
Making peace on the playground is one thing. Making peace between Israelis and Palestinians back home - where the girls will both return in the next few weeks - is an altogether different thing.
Shale Horowitz, associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an expert in international conflict resolution, says there is a need for "caution about attributing too much significance to things like this," referring to any notions people may have about the significance of the girls' friendship in light of conflicts back home.
Still, educators here say that even though it may sound idealistic, they are hopeful that the friendship the girls have developed as schoolmates is one that will help - even if only in a small way - in the ongoing quest for peace in the Middle East and elsewhere.
"My ultimate hope is it will help with peace in all regions of the world," says Bonni Haber, principal at Atwater Elementary School. "It's making inroads toward peace step by step, person by person," she says of the girls' friendship. "You have to go one step at a time."
New ideas
The girls say that through their friendship, they have been able to break down barriers and erode misconceptions.
Maya says that until she met Lina, she had been under the impression that all Arabs were hostile.
"I always thought they want to kill us," Maya says.
Lina had misgivings about Israelis, but she says her father told her Israeli children "are the same as you. Go and play with them."
So the girls play together on the playground at Atwater school - a world far removed from the one to which they will soon return.
Their education back home won't be the same, either. Maya, for instance, speaks of learning lessons of the prophet Moses and leading the Israelites to freedom. Lina, whose family is Christian, speaks of lessons that speak of a person who will come to "free the land," referring to Palestine.
The girls are in Shorewood because their fathers are visiting professors at the nearby University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Maya's father, Oded Lowengart, a widely published business instructor in the School of Management at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, is a visiting associate professor in the School of Business Administration at UWM.
Lina's father, an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at Birzeit University in the West Bank, is here on a Fulbright scholarship. He is doing research in UWM's department of materials engineering.
Both men are set to take their families back home in the next few weeks. They declined to be interviewed for this article.
Maya and Lina are still learning about their respective histories, which are intertwined. Maya's native Timmorim, for example, is an Israeli moshav, or farming community. However, many Palestinians regard it as the destroyed village of Tall al-Turmus.
Both girls say they don't really follow news of all the animosity and turmoil going on in their homelands. They do have a general awareness that there is a dispute between Palestinians and Israelis and that the dispute is over land.
As far as assigning blame, justifying actions and all that, it's not something that's part of their conversation.
They're into girl stuff right now.
Lina, for instance, draws pictures of Cookie Monster and Mickey Mouse.
Maya likes to have sleepovers.
The girls mostly interact with each other at school. They meet sometimes at the Shorewood Library. They say that when they return to their native lands, their friends won't believe that the two have become good friends.
"If I told them I had a friend from Israel, they won't believe me," Lina says of her fellow Palestinians.
Maya, who says she sometimes tells tales to her friends, says that when she tells her fellow Israelis that she has a friend from Palestine, "maybe they will think I'm just joking."
Horowitz, who is Jewish and has visited Israel, says peaceful interaction between Israelis and Palestinians is not all that uncommon, particularly in areas where violence is less frequent. Many Palestinians have relationships with Israelis if they work in Israel, Horowitz says.
Going to school together, though, is more rare, he says.
Keeping in touch
For the girls to maintain a relationship after they return home, though not inconceivable, will be difficult.
They know visiting each other will be difficult once they return, what with the perilous conditions, checkpoints and all. But they say they still plan to write and send each other e-mail.
And their ability to communicate with one another will be possible, thanks, in part, to Ruth Hoenick, the coordinator of the English Language Learner program at Atwater. Hoenick says the girls' friendship shows how learning the same language - in this case English - is a powerful way to "connect children from different cultures."
In the second-floor room where she teaches English to Lina, Maya and a host of other students from around the world is a sign that sums up this idea.
The sign says simply: "Knowledge Changes Lives."
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/331498.asp
~Yoni
ON WISCONSIN : JS ONLINE : NEWS : MILWAUKEE :
E-MAIL | PRINT THIS STORY Far from home, friendship spans political divide
Palestinian, Israeli girls find much in common in U.S.
By JAMAAL ABDUL-ALIM
jabdul-alim@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 5, 2005
Shorewood - Back home, even though they live only a short distance from one another, 11-year-old Maya Lowengart and 10-year-old Lina Alaraj would have been worlds apart.
World-Wise Friendship
Photo/Elizabeth Flores
Maya Lowengart (left), who is Israeli, and Lina Alaraj, who is Palestinian, have been friends since learning English together last year at Shorewood’s Atwater Elementary School.
Two Cultures:
One Friendship
Graphic/Bob Veierstahler
Click to enlarge
Maya is an Israeli from the village of Timmorim. Her native tongue is Hebrew.
Lina is a Palestinian from Beit Jala on the West Bank. Her first language is Arabic.
Back in their homelands - where ideological and political clashes over land and power persist between Israelis and Palestinians - the girls may have never crossed paths, much less become schoolmates.
But here at Atwater Elementary School, the girls are classmates, and, after learning English together during special sessions each day beginning last fall, they have become good friends.
The other day, a visitor found the girls seated together at the same table during lunch - a regular occurrence, according to the school principal.
And during recess, the girls say, they play follow-the-leader and tag, and sometimes make peace between embittered friends when playground disputes arise.
Making peace on the playground is one thing. Making peace between Israelis and Palestinians back home - where the girls will both return in the next few weeks - is an altogether different thing.
Shale Horowitz, associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an expert in international conflict resolution, says there is a need for "caution about attributing too much significance to things like this," referring to any notions people may have about the significance of the girls' friendship in light of conflicts back home.
Still, educators here say that even though it may sound idealistic, they are hopeful that the friendship the girls have developed as schoolmates is one that will help - even if only in a small way - in the ongoing quest for peace in the Middle East and elsewhere.
"My ultimate hope is it will help with peace in all regions of the world," says Bonni Haber, principal at Atwater Elementary School. "It's making inroads toward peace step by step, person by person," she says of the girls' friendship. "You have to go one step at a time."
New ideas
The girls say that through their friendship, they have been able to break down barriers and erode misconceptions.
Maya says that until she met Lina, she had been under the impression that all Arabs were hostile.
"I always thought they want to kill us," Maya says.
Lina had misgivings about Israelis, but she says her father told her Israeli children "are the same as you. Go and play with them."
So the girls play together on the playground at Atwater school - a world far removed from the one to which they will soon return.
Their education back home won't be the same, either. Maya, for instance, speaks of learning lessons of the prophet Moses and leading the Israelites to freedom. Lina, whose family is Christian, speaks of lessons that speak of a person who will come to "free the land," referring to Palestine.
The girls are in Shorewood because their fathers are visiting professors at the nearby University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Maya's father, Oded Lowengart, a widely published business instructor in the School of Management at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, is a visiting associate professor in the School of Business Administration at UWM.
Lina's father, an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at Birzeit University in the West Bank, is here on a Fulbright scholarship. He is doing research in UWM's department of materials engineering.
Both men are set to take their families back home in the next few weeks. They declined to be interviewed for this article.
Maya and Lina are still learning about their respective histories, which are intertwined. Maya's native Timmorim, for example, is an Israeli moshav, or farming community. However, many Palestinians regard it as the destroyed village of Tall al-Turmus.
Both girls say they don't really follow news of all the animosity and turmoil going on in their homelands. They do have a general awareness that there is a dispute between Palestinians and Israelis and that the dispute is over land.
As far as assigning blame, justifying actions and all that, it's not something that's part of their conversation.
They're into girl stuff right now.
Lina, for instance, draws pictures of Cookie Monster and Mickey Mouse.
Maya likes to have sleepovers.
The girls mostly interact with each other at school. They meet sometimes at the Shorewood Library. They say that when they return to their native lands, their friends won't believe that the two have become good friends.
"If I told them I had a friend from Israel, they won't believe me," Lina says of her fellow Palestinians.
Maya, who says she sometimes tells tales to her friends, says that when she tells her fellow Israelis that she has a friend from Palestine, "maybe they will think I'm just joking."
Horowitz, who is Jewish and has visited Israel, says peaceful interaction between Israelis and Palestinians is not all that uncommon, particularly in areas where violence is less frequent. Many Palestinians have relationships with Israelis if they work in Israel, Horowitz says.
Going to school together, though, is more rare, he says.
Keeping in touch
For the girls to maintain a relationship after they return home, though not inconceivable, will be difficult.
They know visiting each other will be difficult once they return, what with the perilous conditions, checkpoints and all. But they say they still plan to write and send each other e-mail.
And their ability to communicate with one another will be possible, thanks, in part, to Ruth Hoenick, the coordinator of the English Language Learner program at Atwater. Hoenick says the girls' friendship shows how learning the same language - in this case English - is a powerful way to "connect children from different cultures."
In the second-floor room where she teaches English to Lina, Maya and a host of other students from around the world is a sign that sums up this idea.
The sign says simply: "Knowledge Changes Lives."